Jingle Bell and The Treeeeee

Tagged!

Auntie Ann tagged me a while back, to my astonishment and delight. Playing along, here are:

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Network Technician
2. Programmer Analyst of Mainframes
3. Dev-Test Engineer of Network Routers
4. C/C++ instructor

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. The march of the penguins
2. One true thing
3. Austin Powers Goldmember
4. There's Something About Mary

C) Four places I have lived:
1. Los Angeles, California
2. Karnataka, India
3. Jersey City, New Jersey
4. Santa Rosa, California

D) Four TV shows I love to watch (all for their creativity):
1. Debbie Travis' Facelift
2. Simply Quilts
3. Mad Money
4. Surprise By Design

E) I have been on vacation:
1. Ooty, India
2. Kumarakom, India
3. Coorg, India
4. New Delhi, India

F) Websites visited daily (ah! frequently enough):
1. Google personal page with RSS feeds and widgets
2. Lightreading
3. eweek
4. local Convention Center event calendars

G) Four of my favorite foods (I can list 4000!):
1. Sweet corn chicken soup - served in Indo-Chinese style
2. Wolfgang Puck's grilled vegetable sandwich/panini
3. Shrimp shumai
4. Cheesecake

H) Four places I would rather be right now (sighhh!):
1. Catching the newest flick in the movie halls with DH
2. Poker night with friends
3. With nieces, crafting
4. Among my yarn, my laptop and knitterly books, planning the next project

I) Four people I’m tagging with this questionnaire:
1. mrsfife
2. [All Other Bloggers reading this.. ]
3. [please plzzzz drop me a comment.. ]
4. [and I'd LOVE to tag you!!]

Goodies off the assembly line (with instructions)

OkaY! Can you believe it, I actually checked off quite a few trinkets off my list and here they are (proudly) on display. Clearing up my living room 'studio', I was suddenly struck by how much sq footage I really have!! :)

Here you'll find:
* a tinsel wire pompom - simple enough

* a knit curly whirly - read my previous post for a howto. Notice the jingle bell. This stretches out the CW nicely when hung, having it spin at the slightest breeze.

* a stocking as promised - some red and brown felt makes the base and curling ribbon gives it the added zing. For the knit piece, I used a stitch technique I found in the pattern for this adorable Woolie Ewe which in itself will make a lovely ornament. I knit a rectangle using the 'loop stitch' to give it the furry woolly look and the dimension. Tell me I'm brilliant!! ;)

* Check out the sweaters. Pattern here. To add to the look, I shaped a tinsel wire into a hanger each.



I am might proud of how these party shoes turned out. The basic pair of shoes is crafted using these origami instructions. I glued glitter, stuck them onto a felt cutout reinforced with card paper and shaped the red tinsel wire into an arch.



Here are some mirror trinkets and tinsel spirals. The wire is sandwiched between 2 mirrors using glue. The jingle bell gives each a finished look. To create those spirals, I wound the wire around cylindrical objects, slipped them out and stretched carefully just a wee bit.



How about some glittery spheres? This is just styrofoam to which glitter is glued. I diluted white glue with some water and brushed it on using a sponge brush.

To prep the styrofoam ball with string and bells, this is how I went about it: Tie a bell at the very middle of a length of string using knots. Once done, fold the string over and stick the open ends together to a toothpick. This you then use to pierce the sphere through until the toothpick emerges from the diametrically opposite point. I then knotted a couple of bells more before I tied the string ends to create a loop using which the ball can be hung.



These are 8 different ideas. I've been browsing for ideas and here are some more that can be employed:
Felted apple
Jingle Bell
Miniature Socks
Fair Isle Christmas Ball
Two Peas In a Pod

Happy Holidays!

Ornament Factory

No, I didn't say it's gonna look pretty!! :) You'll find paper, felt, styrofoam, tinsel wire, balloons, mirrors, glue (but ofcourse!), string, scissors, jingle bells, multi-hued glitter and.. hold your breath... knitting!! :)

The mirror ornaments were the simplest to put together, the knit ones very unique and the origami, the most brilliant. (I'm modest, aren't I? Haha) Do not want to reveal too much as they are meant as a surprise for my nieces but once they're gifted, I do intend to put up all the information, I promise!

The knit ones, I can talk about - I have creative license coz this is a knit blog after all! So well, I made teeny sweaters and I made curly whirlies. Both look so very cute. I wish I had some knitting beads to include some sparkle. Planning on a pair of miniature socks as well.

The sweater patterns are available on the web. For the curly whirlies, I CO 25 stitches, knit into front, back and front again of each stitch for the next row. BO. That's it. You'll have the cutest little whirly curly ready for the tree.

Ornaments frenzy

Is it just me or are many out there getting caught up in making ornaments with an urgency? :) I visited the LCS recently and stocked up my 'craft studio' with glitter and glue. (Never mind that the studio I'm so proud of is my living room - DH is putting up with it with angelic patience!!)

The irony is that after spending $$ on crafting goods, I've gone right ahead, pulled out my scrap yarn and started knitting up little thingies that can serve to adorn any tree. Like small curly whirlies with shiny beads on the edge and a jingle bell at the very end of it. And who can resist the miniature sweater? Also, a small stocking of red felt trimmed with a small piece of knitted white (for the fur).

Do you have more ideas for making knitterly ornaments?